Diminished
by HDUC
Summary: The Doctor is experiencing diminished Time Lord senses, a real wrench in his usual time-and-space-hopping, problem-solving M.O. And to boot, he finds out that someone very close to him might be responsible, and using him to accomplish something for their own purposes! Does this person deserve the benefit of the doubt? The Doctor seems to think so... Ten/Martha. Adult!
1. Chapter 1

**Annnnnd again!**

**My intro/disclaimer is the same as always: t****his type of story cannot be denied when it comes to me. They won't leave me alone until they're out of my head and into words. They are erratic and unreliable... well, they're jerks, basically. ;-) ****As usual, there are a few sci-fi aspects here, but they are excuses to get to the real objective. Which, is, of course, much less lofty: smut. Although I suppose that depends on who you ask!**

**I believe this will be a five-part story, and the chapters will be of inconsistent length. You'll like it. It's grittier and more "real," in a way, than some of the other smutty fics I've posted. In spite of the extraterrestrial and/or supernatural aspects, I think you'll find our human and Time Lord characters extremely relatable.**

**Hope you do, anyway!**

**And if you read, please review! _Allons-y!_**

* * *

I

"What is this?" Martha Jones asked, standing in the doorway of the TARDIS, staring up at a giant, black building. To her, it looked like someone had taken a Middle-Eastern hookah pipe made from ebony, then enlarged and made some kind of church out of it.

"It's the Oracles' Abode," the Doctor told her. He stood behind her, gazing up at the same structure. "I'm hoping they'll have some answers for me."

"It's pretty cool."

"It is that."

"Are you sure I can't come with you?" she asked. "I'll be quiet, I promise."

"It's not a question of quiet," he said. "There are strict rules about who may enter. I had to supplicate to seek audience with one of the Oracles as it was - you saw. It was a whole ceremony thing, requiring proof of having attempted to solve the problem some other way. And _then_ they wanted proof that I have no clairvoyance of my own."

"Don't you?"

"Shh, yes," he whispered. "But not at the moment. That's why we're here."

"How do you prove that you _don't_ have clairvoyance?" she whispered back, just to be whimsical.

"They send information via psychic channels and measure your reaction, via psychic channels. If you have no reaction, apparently, then they know."

"Did you have to fake _no reaction_?"

"Nah," he said. "What they sent me... well, I could 'hear' it, as it were, but it was esoteric enough that I couldn't entirely capture the message. Which may or may not be a symptom of the problem we're trying to solve."

"Well, I have no clairvoyance," she protested. "And I helped you try and solve the problem! Doesn't that make me worthy?"

"It's not a question of worthy either," he said, walking up the ramp and retrieving his coat to put on. "They want as few people as possible traipsing through there, exposed to their mojo. As it is, they aren't that keen on people with _actual_ problems coming in, let alone their companions, who have no problems."

"I have problems. I'm riddled with problems! Look at me!"

The Doctor laughed. "I'll be back soon."

Martha sighed. "Fine. But I want to hear _everything_ about it later."

"Sure," he promised, patting her on the shoulder as he squeezed past her, out the door of the TARDIS.

* * *

The Doctor stood in a dark room, waiting. The meagre lighting only shone on one end of the oblong-shaped space. The walls, he could barely see, were decorated with a swirling pattern of deep red and black.

After a few minutes, a door behind the lights opened, like the spreading portals of a lift. He was startled; he hadn't even noticed there was a door there. A wide platform of some kind appeared, and began pressing forward toward him, into the room. On it, there was a woman, sitting at a big black table. She was large, a few steps beyond "plump," and had a very pleasant face. She was dressed in rich-looking brocaded fabrics of red, purple and gold, including something that looked like a chef's hat.

"A Time Lord," she said in a half-questioning, half-mocking fashion. "I was told that the client was guaranteed to have no clairvoyance of his own."

"Well, that's why I'm here, I think," the Doctor replied. "Sorry, how did you know I was a Time Lord?" He had been very careful not to reveal this fact when he had communicated with the Dispatchers that vet clients for the Oracles.

"It's all over your aura, my love," she said.

"Will you still speak with me?"

"Of course," she told him. "Doctor. Is that what I call you? I find you fascinating. I've never met a Time Lord before. And if the Dispatchers were convinced of your lack of clairvoyance, then that must truly mean something is amiss. Please, sit."

The Doctor cast about, and behind him, he found a chair that he was certain had not been there before. He sat, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee.

"I'll assume the problem is something to do with diminished powers or senses," she said.

"Twice, I was not able to suss out the cause of a problem that should have been routine for me," he began, gravely. "On the desert planet of Affo Largo, the Dusk Vultures were swallowing big swathes of time energy, which was causing nomadic tribes to fall into void holes by the dozen, reducing their populations to desperate numbers. But I could not see the time energy disappearing, couldn't feel it. I had to do actual _research_ to find out what the Dusk Vultures resort to when there is no more darkness to feed upon. Only then could I properly be rid of them."

"Oh my," said the Oracle. "Go on."

"Then, I was called into a government facility in the Kheldspan Sector, where there seemed to be a session of their Hemispheric Assembly that was caught in a time loop. I watched the Presiding Senator bang his gavel and pass the same law a total of eighty-nine times, as well as all of the argument leading up to it. I spent hours in the assembly chamber, looking for wormholes. I spent another few hours doing research again, trying to determine if there had been a trip in the sequence of events somehow on that planet, but I was unable to determine the cause. When my companion and I decided to take a break, we went back to my vehicle, the TARDIS, whose Time Rotor was detecting, and already beginning the process of repairing, a breach in the time vortex, bleeding into the Kheldspan Sector. It was able to seal the gap and release the session from the loop, but I should have _known_, instinctively, upon entering that chamber, that there was a vortex leak. I'm a Time Lord - it's in my blood and guts to know these things. I sense them, the way an animal senses an impending tremor, or..."

"Or the way I sense auras," said the Oracle.

"I'll take your word for that one. But, understand... it's not entirely gone," he qualified. "It's like the knowledge, the sense, is scratching at me, but like it's locked away inside a little box where I can't get to it. It's hard to explain."

"Well, this is a disturbing problem, Doctor," she told him. "I'm glad you've come to me. As the last of your kind, you cannot afford to have these powers weakened."

"I've started to wonder what exactly makes me a Time Lord, if I can't sense anomalies in time."

"What indeed," she commented. "But I believe I have an idea of the cause."

"Really? Already?"

"Yes, sir," she said. "Since I entered this room, your aura has indicated to me beyond a doubt that you are a Time Lord. However, it has also indicated a fracture. It has only grown deeper as you have been speaking about it."

"A fracture in my aura?"

"Yes, it's difficult to understand for those who are not readers themselves. Doctor, your energy is incomplete somehow. You're still you, you're still a Time Lord, but something is... incomplete. I don't know how else to put it."

"Great," he sighed. "What can I do about it?"

She stood, and made her way round the table and off the platform. In her girth, she took a while to walk to the Doctor, but she never broke eye contact with him. When she was about three feet away, she began looking at the area just above and around his head.

"Oh, yes, your energy is definitely incomplete," she confirmed. "And I'm sensing something added, like an appendage upon your aura."

"Something that doesn't belong?"

"Sort of."

"Is it dangerous?"

She looked him again in the eyes. "Doctor, let me ask you: have you been exposed to, say, genetic variation?"

"Erm, yeah," he said flatly. "I've regenerated completely, nine times over."

"No, not that," she said, shaking off his words. "I mean something unnatural. Something that takes natural energy, gifted by the universe, and perverts it."

"Oh," he said. "Yes, I have."

"Had you been noticing your diminished senses before being exposed?"

"No you mention it... no!"

"Has someone been exposed to it alongside you?"

"Yes."

"Who is that?"

"My friend Martha," he said. "She and I got trapped in a machine that jostles existing DNA and, as you said, mutates it, perverts it into something unnatural."

"I know that Martha cannot be Gallifreyan. What is she?"

"She's human."

"Oh," said the Oracle sprightly. "Okay, that answers one question, if not others. That addition to your aura I mentioned, it's something warmer, almost. That must be Martha's humanness reflecting upon you."

"Okay... so are you saying that our energies got mixed up together in that machine?"

"Yes, a bit. But don't worry. She has not lost any of her humanness because of you."

"But, she has part of my energy, and I need to get it back. Right?"

"Well, unfortunately, you can't get it back completely," she said. "It's like mixing black and white paint. All you will ever have is grey - you will never be able to separate the black from the white again."

The Doctor sighed. "Fabulous."

"But the bizarreness of this, Doctor, lies in the fact that her merely _having_ a piece of you should not diminish you in this way. She is _using_ it somehow."


	2. Chapter 2

**This is a short chapter, and it's not the most exciting thing I've ever written, but it does have one important development... and/or one important magical science-fictiony, time-saving device, how ever you choose to see it. :-) No hints at smut yet, but I promise, it's on its way.**

* * *

II

"Excuse me? Did you just say that Martha is _using _my energy for something?"

"I did."

"So, our essences got all mixed up in a genetic milkshake-maker..."

"Not your essences. Just some radiating vigour, if you will. Energy. A tiny bit of what makes you... you."

"Okay, fine, whatever. But how is she doing it? Martha doesn't know about stuff like that. I mean, she knows plenty of stuff, believe you me, but not about... energies of the universe and auras and whatnot. And what's she doing it for?"

"I have no idea, Doctor, I'm sorry."

A chair appeared behind the Oracle, and she sat down, almost knees-to-knees with the Doctor, while he fell into contemplation for a few moments.

"Who is this Martha?" the Oracle asked, earnestly.

"She is my... travelling companion," he told her. "My best friend. She's helpful and brilliant, and..."

"She lives in your TARDIS with you?"

"Yes."

"You see her every day? Share meals, share confidences?"

"Yes."

"Do you trust her?" she asked.

He answered, his eyes narrowing, "With my life."

"I'm going to have to ask you to explore the possibility that she's not who or what she claims to be."

"Er, no."

"Or at least that she doesn't always have your best interest in mind and/or may be more dishonest than you might like to believe."

"That's another no," he told her flatly.

"I knew you would say that," she sighed. "Does that mean you are not willing to bring her in for a proper interrogation?"

"Interrogation?" he asked, standing suddenly. "You mean with restraints and mind probes?"

"Yes, but the electrical shock is only very mild, and we now only use three uniformed officers, only _one_ of whom is armed with..."

"Absolutely not," the Doctor insisted, stepping away from his chair, and from the Oracle. "Whatever is happening here, however it is that Martha is _using_ this energy, it is not malevolent, I'm sure of it! I will get to the bottom of it myself."

"Doctor, you came to me for help."

"And you have helped," he said. "But clairvoyant though you may be, there are some things that you just cannot see. It looks like Martha is one."

"Fine," she said, gently. "But remember this: you are a saviour to the entire universe, Doctor. None of us can afford to have you off your game, even a little bit. And we have the means to make this Martha person confess."

"There's nothing to confess," he told her darkly.

"You know where we are, if you change your mind."

"Wonderful," he said, turning to leave.

"Wait, one thing," she said, trying to get up from her chair. "Help me, will you, love?"

The Doctor sighed, and crossed to her, lifting her by one arm out of her seated arrangement.

"If you insist on doing this yourself, at least let me give you a tool," she told him. "Follow me."

"What kind of tool?"

"It will not harm either one of you, in any way," said the Oracle. "You might be able to use it to find out _when_ she is using your energies, if not how. And it will give you _no _insight as to how to stop her."

The Doctor frowned, walking behind the wide woman across the doorway through which she had entered. It was some kind of living quarters. She reached into a nearby chest of drawers, and brought up what looked like a glass cube. She placed it in his hand, then grasped both his hand and the cube, in both of her hands. She shut her eyes, and whispered for him to do the same, and concentrate his energies, just for the moment, on her.

For a long moment, they stood this way. Then she let go, and said, "You can now use this apparatus to read your own aura. Just to clarify, Doctor, your energy is overall splintered, as long as Martha goes on periodically _using_ your energy, however she does. But you might find that it's, well, _more so_ at times when she is wielding what is yours. Maybe at those times, you can seek out the truth."

The Doctor examined the cube. The inside swirled with light and smoke of differing colours.

"Doctor, you'll..." she began. But she sensed that she was not being listened-to. "Doctor, pay attention!"

"What? Yes?"

"You'll need to observe her," said the Oracle. "If you brought here in for interrogation, one of the things we would do, in order to help you, the affected party, is after she confessed her methods, make her perform the... whatever she is doing. We would analyse the act, determine how much energy is being used, if it is, in fact, being depleted, or if it is replicated. That could be a question of whether it will hurt you in the long-run. Then we could know how to stop her, whether we would need to subdue her somehow, what materials we would need. Or maybe, we would find out that all we need is to slow her down."

"Okay," he said, going back to staring at the oscillating display inside the cube. "I've got it."

"Because, remember, you can't get your energy back. It all relies on your friend's actions."

"I'll just ask her to stop, and she'll stop."

"What if she won't? Or can't? It might make things easier if you let us do the work. If it's only the interrogation process to which you object, once you have got her to confess to you, you can bring her back here for observation. We can study her and make all the necessary measurements while she does whatever she does. The observation is not particularly probative. All of the instruments are ambient and our technicians have no stake in it one way or another. No one will even so much as speak to her harshly - I'll see to it myself."

"Okay," he said, distractedly. "I'll think about it."

"Doctor, I remind you, what you hold in your hand, the Aura Block, is not one-hundred-per-cent," she reminded him. "It's an iffy way of investigating, but it's the best I can do for you, if you will not bring Martha to us."

"How does it work?" he asked, indicating the cube, finally making eye-contact once again.

"Study it," she told him. "You're clever, and you're just a bit more attuned to the intangible than most beings in the universe. You'll catch on as to how to read it soon enough."

"Thanks," he muttered.


	3. Chapter 3

**Martha After Dark!**

**Miss Jones' methods for using the Doctor's energy might become a bit clearer in this chapter... and she is oh-so-human. You might also start to see where this naughty story is going... ;-)**

* * *

III

Things in the TARDIS were a bit tense for a few days. Martha was annoyed that the Doctor came back from the Oracles' Abode with only evasive answers as to what was inside, and/or what the Oracle had said about his problem. He would only say that the Oracle told him that there is a leeching of his energy somewhere, perpetrated by someone specific, though she hadn't known _how, _and he had to get to the bottom of it himself. When she asked for details, and asked how she could help, he clammed up.

And the Doctor was annoyed at the Aura Block. He had no idea how to interpret any of the glow or the coloured smoke within, in spite of being clever and "attuned to the intangible," as the Oracle had said. He wondered if he might be able to read it, if he were operating at full capacity. This could be one hell of a Catch-22.

Though, it was a fascinating device; it allowed him to see some of what the Oracle could see when she looked at him. He wondered what aspect of it had told her he was a Time Lord. He wondered which aspect was the non-belonging "appendage" she had spoken of, the part of his aura that reflected Martha's humanness. More than anything, he wondered what about it had suggested to the Oracle that his energies were somehow incomplete. If he knew this, he could perhaps know how to recognise the moment at which he needed to confront Martha. Perhaps he could even interface it with the TARDIS and find a way to give himself some sort of alert that he could understand, should the moment arrive.

But after a week of meditating over it, and even asking the TARDIS for help, he had nothing. What was inside never changed as far as he was concerned, not in any meaningful way, and he still didn't know what any of it meant.

In a huff, he set it on the night stand one evening, before crawling into bed. They had spent the day in a sweaty garden pod, trying to systematically disarm a bomb that would have destroyed an entire island. Emotions and tensions had run high, the heat had been unbearable. He was in no mood to stare at a piece of glass for no good reason tonight. He dimmed the lights in the room, except for one immediately overhead which would allow him to read, and settled against the headboard.

When he was almost finished with the book, he glanced over at the clock. Under normal circumstances, he could more or less keep his own time, and the clock was for decoration. But with his recent issues, he preferred to have the clock, just for a second opinion. In most instances, he was finding that he was "off," and the clock was needed.

In any case, it had been an hour and ten minutes since he and Martha had said good night and retired. And as he contemplated the face of the timepiece, something caught his eye. A flicker.

No, not a flicker, a dimming. Light from inside the cube was becoming noticeably more muted every few seconds, signalling, he felt, a diminishment of energy. The Doctor had learned absolutely nothing about the significance of the aspects of his aura, but he knew that in a week of contemplation over the cube, and near-constant watchfulness, he hadn't seen this phenomenon before.

Funny thing: it was, as far as Martha was concerned, the middle of the night. Whenever he had a human companion, he tried to keep them both, as much as possible, on a twenty-four hour schedule, in order to keep the companion sane. The two of them had gone to bed an hour ago, with the intent, more or less, of meeting up again in six-to-seven hours in the console room. At that point, it would be "morning." What could she be doing in the dark of the night, after signing off for the day, using _his _energy somehow? Why could she not do this during the day? Could the Oracle have been right - was Martha being dishonest? Or could something be happening _to _her?

He didn't know the answer yet, but he still doubted that Martha was up to no good.

And then, the cube went almost dark.

Cursing, he threw the blankets off suddenly, tossed the bedroom door open and jogged down the hall in his t-shirt and pyjama bottoms.

He stopped outside her bedroom and reached for the knob. But he stopped himself. He didn't want to just plunder in - he had no idea what he might find. She was still his friend, he was still going to give her the benefit of the doubt. And so he knocked.

He heard a surprised gasp.

"Hello?" he heard her call from inside. Her voice sounded frantic. "Doctor?"

"Yeah, who else?" he answered. "Are you all right?"

"I'm... I'm fine, why?"

"Because... Martha, can I come in? We need to talk."

"Can't it wait?" she asked. She was still a little nervous and frantic, and at the same time, moving about inside of her bedroom. He was now fairly certain that she _was_ up to something, though he couldn't tell what. "Ten minutes... just give me ten minutes, and..." She did not finish her sentence.

"It can't wait," he told her. "Please open the door."

"Ugh. Okay, just a moment," she called, shakily. He heard the unmistakable sound of the bedclothes being hastily billowed and moved, then the sound of a drawer opening and shutting.

The Doctor waited another ten seconds, changing his mind at least a hundred times in that span, over whether or not he should just open the door. He had the sonic in his pocket. Even if she had it locked, he could just...

At last, she opened it herself. When he saw her, the whole game changed.

She was wearing a light pink satin robe, with large, red Japanese flowers. He had seen the robe before, but never quite like this. It hung off one of her shoulders and had been so hastily tied that one side remained folded back a little, and most (though not all) of one of her breasts was exposed. Her hair was mussed, and her bangs were hanging in her face carelessly. She seemed shaken and nervous, she was breathing heavily, most likely from surprise, and her cheeks were coloured with a warm pink.

"Oi, what's wrong? Planet in crisis?" she asked, trying to push her bangs out of her face. Her eyes were wide with exaggerated interest and concern, and her lips would not quite close.

His jaw dropped as he gave her an incredibly obvious once-over before he could stop himself. And in a swift and blinding moment of revelation, he understood. Comprehension set in and pervaded his mind as almost unconsciously, he began to mull over the problem and tug at the process of solving it.

And also, _lust_ hit him like a ton of bricks. Unexpectedly, and all at once.

"Erm... I... I'm sorry to, erm..." he stammered.

"No, it's... it's okay," she said. "I'm the one who should apologise." Her fingers went anxiously to the lapel of her robe, and she timidly tried to pull it shut.

"No, no, you shouldn't. It's not... I mean, it's nothing that... erm, I'm not sure..." he continued to stammer. "Do you want me to go?"

"No," she reassured him. "Something's wrong. What is it that can't wait?"

His brain had been relatively in-order before she had opened the door. He had known the situation would be difficult and sensitive no matter what, and he had had a kind of protocol filed away as to what to do or say, depending on what he found out.

But _this_ he had not expected. Not only had the realisation of how exactly Martha was _using_ his energies just made the situation ten times more sensitive, but it had muddled his focus. He couldn't help but contemplate her now, the idea of what was happening in his absence, and it had shifted his point of view, his total perception, from his brain to his body. He was asking himself thousands of questions now... Why hadn't he known? How the hell could he possibly _stop her_?

Why was he so delighted to find out this truth? Was it relief that it wasn't something worse, or did he actually feel suddenly drawn to her? Was it _her_, or was it the idea of what she did behind closed doors? Was it the situation, or the woman? Or, was it just his ego?

He forced himself to get under control, and he sighed, attempting to recite a Zen mantra in his mind. He wrangled his thinking back into his brain, and quickly assessed.

What good would it do to tell her, "It's nothing, go back to bed?" None whatsoever, in fact, it would surely irritate her even more, and cause _her_ to start to wonder what _he _was up to.

The path of ultimately least resistance was actually, in this case, in this moment, the most difficult.

"Let's go get a cup of tea," he said.


	4. Chapter 4

**A lot of talking, some drinking and crying, some really awkward semi-sexiness... but not really. I hope Martha's reasoning seems sound and "organic" (her word) to you, and not just an excuse to get the Doctor interested. Because in my mind, she is absolutely dreading this. For now.**

* * *

IV

In what the Doctor jokingly called "The Salon," (usually in an exaggerated French accent) because it was the fanciest, most lush, comfy room in the TARDIS, the two of them sat on the red sofa. As Martha cradled a cup of tea and stared wide-eyed at the floor, he told her the whole story of his trip to the Oracles' Abode. He related what the Oracle had said about the "use" of his energy, the Aura Block, and why he had come knocking on her bedroom door at that particular moment.

She eventually broke eye-contact and went eerily still.

"Martha, please say something," he muttered, after she had been silent for an extraordinarily long time.

Without looking at him, she handed him her empty teacup, and asked, "Have you got anything stronger?"

"Yeah," he said, taking the cup. He moved round behind the sofa and she heard clinking. When he returned, the cup was about half-full of Scotch.

"Thanks," she said, taking more than a sip. He let her contemplate for another minute or so, and finally, she croaked, "I'm sorry."

"No need to be," he assured her quietly.

"I had no idea."

"I know. It's all right."

"But it's just since Lazarus?"

"Yep."

She nodded, taking another mouthful of the warming brown liquid.

"And she said there's no way to reverse the... mixing-up of energies that occurred? There's nothing I can do to give it back to you?"

"Nothing that even the Oracle knows about," he said. "She likened it to mixing black and white paint; all you'd ever have was grey. She said the only way to fix _my _problem is if you stop. Or slow down."

"Slow down? What, like put the brakes on a runaway train? You know, it's not like this is happening every single moment I'm not with you," she snapped.

"I know that," he said. "I've had that bloody cube for over a week, and this is the first time I've noticed a change."

"Most nights, I'm like, this nice, normal person," she said, her voice starting to quaver. "I just... you know, lie down and go to sleep. There are just times..."

"It's all right, you don't have to explain."

"Sometimes, I can even fight it off. Sometimes it will hit me and I'll just think, _ugh, not now,_ for whatever reason, and I just... move on with my life. I go to sleep."

"I get it, Martha," he said, placing his hand on her back. "I really, really do. I've been alive a long time, and I've been, well... unattached, in a manner of speaking, for most of it. Trust me - I've been there."

"You've had to live in close quarters like this, with someone you..." she stopped. "_Think about_ a lot?" Her tone was sceptical and bitter.

"Yep," he said.

She took another swig, and seemed to try to get control of her emotions. But then she lost the battle. She buried her face in her free hand, and her whole body seemed to tighten. For a couple of minutes, he stroked her back and shoulder while she seemed cry tears that were nothing but bitter.

"Why are you crying?" he asked, actually only trying to be reassuring.

"Because," she whimpered. "I otherwise I might explode."

"Explode? Why?"

She practically shouted, "I don't know what to do or say next! I feel like I'm an exposed nerve, and you have a skewer in your hand! I feel like you're looking at my insides, inside my mind and soul too, and I have no recourse! I'm angry with you, and with myself! I'm angry because I can't turn back time or rewrite your memory."

"Why would you want to do either one of those things?"

"Because this is embarrassing, don't you see that?"

"Yeah, I see that. But Martha, please don't be upset," he said. "There's good news here. Now that we know it's something as benign as this, we can solve the problem together."

"Solve the problem? Together? Are you insane?" she asked, now properly shouting. Her face was streaked with tears.

"No, I'm not," he assured her. "I'm sorry, but I can't go on like this. I've lost track of time! A Time Lord with no sense of time is just a... Lord. And not the useful kind."

"Blimey," she breathed, and sniffled, sitting back against the sofa cushions. She finally looked him in the eye again. "So, let me get this straight. I... let's say, conjure an image of you - which, by the way, is more or less involuntary - and that takes energy from you?"

"Well, maybe not so much the image itself, but the... other things that go along with it. Whatever is going on inside your head, I'm assuming, is using not just images, but... say, invoking mannerisms, textures..."

"Your voice, your eyes, the way you move..." she added. She surprised herself. She reckoned she must be feeling the Scotch a bit. "I'm pulling it all from somewhere inside of me, which I suppose, is actually now coming literally from _your_ energies."

"Right, and maybe some of what you're using is hypothetical," he suggested. "Extrapolating from what you _do_ know, in order to hypothesise about what you _don't_ know. That kind of synthesis would cause all parts of your right brain to tug at anything it could, concerning me. The first thing it can find is actual energy that you got _from me._"

She blinked at him a few times, and then mused questioningly, "Extrapolating... in order to hypoth..." Then she realised what he meant. "You mean, trying to work out what you'd be like between the sheets, based on what you're like when you're up and running about? That was a lot of posh words for _fantasising._"

He cleared his throat. "Erm, yeah. You know what? That might be enough Scotch for you."

"Yeah, I know, I'm a quick drunk." She handed him her cup, and he himself downed what was left. "So all of that takes something from you. I guess I can kind of see that."

There was a silence, while they both wondered what to say next.

And then, "Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"I don't know how to stop. I will try, but... I don't know how to discipline my mind that way, not without driving myself mad. I've never needed to, never thought it was beneficial to banish persistent thoughts completely. Even times when I said that I've been able to fight it off, I've always sort of embraced my angst, in some way. I've always thought that letting it burn would be what ultimately allows me to live with it more comfortably. Not just this thing with _you_, but any time I've had something on my mind that wouldn't go away."

"That makes sense."

"I mean... I would stop in a heartbeat, if it meant restoring you to full capacity, but like I said, it just _happens_ once in a while. And sometimes, there's only one way to quiet my mind, and let myself relax enough to sleep."

"I know, Martha."

Her voice was rising again, growing supplicant. "It's how I feel... I can't help how I feel! Trust me, I've tried to shake this thing off! I've tried to just plough through it, but I can't! You're under my skin, Doctor, in a huge way. In _every _way. It's not something I chose!" She was sitting at the edge of the sofa now, practically pleading with him.

"Martha, I know!"

"So what do we do? You can't just take me home - it wouldn't solve anything. I'd still have my problem, which means you'd still have yours."

"You know what we have to do," he told her, gravely.

She threw herself back against the cushions, remembering the investigative advice he had said he'd received from the Oracle. "Really?"

"Martha, there are multiple options for stopping this thing, some of them less pleasant than others. Worst case scenario, I wipe your mind of all vestiges of me, and return you to Royal Hope on the day after the Judoon incident, none the wiser."

"What? Are you joshing me? I wouldn't remember you at all?"

"Worst, worst, _worst_ case! But, best-case scenario, we find out that the energy you're taking from me isn't actually being depleted in the long-term, and we devise some kind of dampener that will let you sleep, and help me find my groove again. Maybe the answer is somewhere in-between. But in order to determine that..."

"You have to observe," she said flatly.

He shrugged, then took a pause and asked, "Would you rather I overreact?"

"No."

"I could just send you in to the Oracles' Abode for observation, if you'd prefer."

She narrowed her eyes, and frowned at him, and for thirty long seconds, she seemed to be thinking. Then she asked, "You'd have _to watch?"_

"In a manner of speaking."

"What do you mean, _in a manner of speaking_?"

"I mean, I can design an instrument that will measure..."

"Ugh," she groaned.

"What?" he asked.

For a long while, she stared exhaustedly at the wall, measuring her words. Then, "I'm not a _phenomenon_, Doctor. This is not a hurricane or a rock concert - you can't just set a _thing_ in the room with me and hope it measures my... enthusiasm. You can't put a number on my feelings. You can't just..."

"All right, all right," he said, suddenly remembering what they were talking about. A flash of her, dishevelled as she was when she opened her bedroom door came into his mind. The flushed cheeks had been the tell-tale sign, the sure-fire signal of _warmth_ that had made him tingle with sudden desire. "What do you suggest then?" His mouth went dry.

"This is an organic thing, Doctor. We are talking about something that lives and breathes in me, I suppose almost literally, and no _machine_ will do it justice, not on its own. I don't want to know that you're somewhere, watching me on a monitor, like I'm a science experiment."

"Okay."

"Which means, if you're going to _watch, _then watch. Come in and observe. Be organic. Bring your equipment if you must, but the point is, we are sentient beings, you and I."

"You want me there?"

"No. But it seems more natural than having my body's most poignant internal musings _measured _by _instruments."_

* * *

They both had to have a few more swallows of Scotch before they could properly talk about how it would go. But they did manage to set out an agreement. How to get started? How to set up the equipment?

How was he to behave in the room?

"As though you're not there," she told him firmly. "If this is going to happen, I'll need to shut you out completely."

"You'll need to pretend I'm not there... in order to pretend I'm there?"

"Don't analyse," she snapped. "Just do it. Or the whole thing falls apart."

"What if I need to move about the room? Adjust things?"

"Do what you have to do, to get the information you need. But don't move unless you need to, and I won't take... you know... _stage directions_."

"What if..." he began, but then trailed off, ultimately taking another swig from the Scotch. They had dispensed with the teacup, and where now sharing the bottle.

"What if, what?"

"What if the whole thing just proves too much for me?" he asked, swallowing hard, trying to draw her eyes into his, desperately hoping she would understand what he meant. He didn't want to have to explain.

"Too much for you? What, like you can't bear to watch?"

"I don't think that _can't bear it_ will be the problem," he said meekly.

"You mean," she said, smiling, but speaking with bluntness. "What if you like it a little too much?"

"Yeah," he whined, pulling one hand down over his face.

She sat up straight and looked at him squarely, blinking hard a few times. Then she said, "I actually have no idea how to answer that question."

But the first, and most difficult, order of business had been working out _when_. Would they just pick a date approximately ten evenings hence? Martha dismissed that notion, saying that it would make her too nervous if she knew the date was coming, and she might not be able, or want to "comply."

After much deliberation, it was decided that the only way to do it "organically" was, she would find a way to let the Doctor know when, on her own terms. In the meantime, he would devise some sort of apparatus that would measure the so-called damage she did.

And one afternoon after a pulse-pumping near-crash in a spaceship, the Doctor having diverted its course away from an asteroid using his unique powers of quick-thinking, shouting, and leaning on the throttle with all of his strength, she let him know. She went to her room and scrawled, "Tonight" on a writing pad, then slipped the note into his breast pocket, with a smile, and a little pat on the lapel.


	5. Chapter 5

**Well, things may never be the same again for our favorite pair...**

**And in a related story, HERE COMES THE SMUT.** **Do not read in mixed company! **

**Do, however, leave a review!**

* * *

**V**

As per the agreement, the Doctor followed her to her bedroom without a word, like a ghost, carrying a suitcase that contained the measurement equipment. While she was showering, he set up the machinery.

First, he installed a small monitor mounted on a floor stand, near an armchair about ten feet from the bed. Next, he placed four metal devices, each about three feet tall with energy-capturing copper coils across the tops, on the floor at the four corners of the bed itself. From a remote control in his pocket, he attempted to calibrate the devices. Though, he had never done anything quite like this before, and had no idea what kind and how much energy she would give off, and/or how to balance the energy she expelled with that which she took in.

And as he thought about it, he shivered. Looking at the displays, and what they represented, looking at the bed and thinking of what he would have to see and know in order to make the settings exactly right... it all made his body tighten. It put a lump in his throat, and he tried to swallow it down, but only found that it was replaced with quickened breathing. He closed his eyes and tried to get control of his anticipation, but all he could see when he did so was her flushed cheeks, parted lips and ill-tied satin robe. The robe itself now hung lazily from a hook on the wall beside the bed, which did not help matters.

Uncomfortably, he adjusted it all as best he could, then removed his jacket and tie. He rolled up his sleeves, and waited, pacing, just for a few minutes. He then heard a knock from inside the loo, signalling that Martha was ready to come out. As per the agreement, he took his seat in the armchair, and tried to blend in with the furniture.

She emerged through the door, and shut it behind her, without acknowledging him at all. She wore a white ribbed tank top and a pair of very short, shocking orange, knit shorts. He supposed this must be what she wore to bed on a normal night. He liked it. He had never seen her, except for that one time, after they had said good night.

She crossed to the bed, and turned on the table lamp, then crossed to the switch that turned off the overhead lighting. Now, what was left was a soft, dim glow, suitable for winding down at the end of the day.

He heard her sigh heavily, then peel back the covers. She popped a vitamin with a mouthful of water, then set her alarm. With that, she lay down with her head on the pillow, and her legs on top of the blankets. For a few moments she remained unmoving, staring at the ceiling. Then her eyes slid shut.

She was still for a long while. The Doctor was afraid that she had drifted off to sleep...

But then, her lips parted and she let out a heavy sigh, and her right hand went to her thigh. She stroked up and down slowly a few times, then her fingers twisted round to her inner thigh. Again, she stroked for several moments.

Already the Doctor was finding that the lump was back, and he had to fight the urge to clear his throat, as he had promised to make as little noise as absolutely possible. This was going to be tough to sit through.

As her right hand continued its motion, her left now went to her breast. Her whole hand cupped the flesh for several seconds, and she sighed with the sensation. But then she pulled back her palm, leaving only her thumb and middle finger, grasping at the nipple through the white fabric. As she tugged, she moaned lightly, and the thumb of the other hand now stroked over the cleft between her legs, again, through the fabric.

And for about a minute, she seemed very happy this way, her left nipple growing harder, and her right thumb concentrating its circles more and more toward the centre. Then her left had switched to the other breast, and her legs parted further. Her right hand's caress crawled lightly down further between her legs, toward the mattress, teasing with her fingertips, moving back up again. On the return trip, she moaned again, and her whole body arched with tension.

For no more than a few seconds, she lay, panting slightly, nipples straining, legs spread just so. And with that, she tugged at her tank top and pulled the fabric up over her breasts, exposing them to the air.

The Doctor could not help but take in a short, sharp breath upon seeing her this way, which he was certain she must have heard. For the first time now, he actually noticed a change in the shape of his trousers. Where he had been just a bit on-edge before, he was now visibly excited, and not finished yet. Inside his mind, he cursed, though had no idea why he was surprised.

But it didn't seem to bother her. She licked her left middle finger and began to circle it around the nipple, teasing at it, making it shiny, and even more prominent than before. Her right hand now breached the waist band of her shorts.

He watched intently as her fingertips disappeared behind the orange elastic, and a tell-tale bulge appeared lower, as she crooked her hand right where her thighs met. She drew in a long hiss of a breath as one finger bent, and it became obvious that she'd gone straight for her clit. She tried to draw both breasts together now with one hand as the other little finger stroked again and again. She writhed, moaning softly, and he marvelled at how one little inch of flesh could make her entire body twist round this way.

She was able to maintain this rhythm for a surprisingly long time, without seeming to bring herself too far toward the edge. Eventually, she seemed to force herself to back off and calm, and then she sat up, and quickly removed her shorts tossing them to the floor. She lay back, and crooked one leg, exposing herself completely, revealing that she had rendered herself plenty slick and swollen.

Her right hand went back to work between her folds, and for a minute or so, two fingers just stroked the hardened clit in circles, while her hips seemed involuntarily to press themselves up from the mattress. And then suddenly, she slid those two fingers down and inside, gasping with the delicious impact of it. She moved them in and out slowly, leisurely, sighing every few seconds with the pleasure, and with trying to control the stirrings inside.

Again, the Doctor cursed internally, now knowing for certain that he would never survive this. What the hell had he been thinking?

And then there was a foreign noise. One of the energy-capturers was malfunctioning.

This time he cursed aloud, and instinctively stumbled forward to fix it. With a flick from the sonic screwdriver, the problem was solved, and he was left standing at the foot of the bed.

For the first time, she opened her eyes, and acknowledged him. "All right?" she asked softly, her eyes rather glazed-over, never stopping what she was doing.

"It's fine now," he said, gulping hard, unable to move back to the chair. He was frozen.

"And you? Are you fine too?" She was dreamy, almost intoxicated on dopamine, inhibitions basically _gone._

"I'm..." he gulped.

Her eyes drifted down to the bulge at the front of his trousers. She smiled slightly.

"Sorry," he said, though he wasn't quite sure why.

"It's all right," she mused, still pushing her fingers in and out, her other hand lazily caressing her navel. "You do what you need to do."

She moved her legs to the left, and gestured with her eyes for him to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Seriously?" he whispered.

"Unless you don't want to."

He moved round slowly, and sat down where she had indicated, and watched for another few minutes while she closed her eyes and pleasured herself, in and out of her wet opening, and up and over her clit, then back in again. He observed at close-quarters as she tugged at her nipples and let more moans escape from her lips.

And somewhere in that span of time, he had managed to unhook his trousers and release his cock. If nothing else, his already tight trousers were making things painful for him, at this stage. He held it for a few moments, then could not help but stroke. Especially as he noticed her breathing grow very, very laboured, and her cheeks grow flushed. Suddenly, both hands were hard at work between her legs, moving faster and faster as her hips pressed back and forth in urgent spurts. She breathed bitter hot expletives into the air, and seemed to be commanding _herself_ to push her over the edge.

Before he knew it, she was crying out and arching off the bed. She was grabbing handfuls of blanket with her left hand, while her right hand remained firmly wedged between her legs, anchoring her to this grand explosion. He paid attention. He watched how her slick flesh seemed to grasp at her fingers, and throb, and how her whole body twitched in tune with itself as she came down from her high.

Though, for some reason, in his fascination, he held back. And he was glad.

Martha had gone back to not acknowledging his presence. She lay for a minute or so, panting, still massaging herself rather absently. But then, she turned to her right, and opened the night table drawer. The Doctor's mind brought up an involuntary sense-memory of the night when he'd first confronted her. He had definitely heard that drawer open and shut, as she rushed to cover her tracks.

She reached inside the drawer, and her hand emerged with a hot pink tool. It was perhaps twelve inches long, with a teardrop-shaped knob at one end.

She lay back down, holding the tool lightly like a feather duster, spreading her legs with both knees bent. She ran the bulbous knob down over her clit, causing a deep moan and shudder, then down towards her opening. She repeated the action a few times, and then changed the tool's position in her hand, and held it like a weapon. She slid it inside, until only a few inches were still showing.

As most of it disappeared into her body, he could not help but moan, and he took another firm grasp on his cock, and wondered if he would last as long as she, this time.

She pulled it mostly out, then shoved it all the way back in, groaning viscerally, whispering something guttural. She did it again. Then again, then again, repeating the drive over and over, and each time, moving faster and harder.

Seeming to be lost inside her own mind, she was immersed in total bliss. She fucked herself fiercely as her eyes practically rolled back in her head, with the rough, intense sensation. For a surprisingly long while, she continued this way, high-pitched sounds occasionally escaping as she found just the right spot. She let some filthy words fly, and as she went deeper into the fantasy, she used her free hand to begin rubbing her clit in circles again. As it happened, her body arched once more, and her pelvis tilted back and forth as she tried to find leverage.

She felt the end coming near, and knew she would be pretty well spent after this. She opened her eyes, nearly having forgotten that the object of her desires was sitting right there watching, not six inches from her at the end of the bed, jaw agape, with his cock in his hand.

They made eye contact for a moment, and she smiled as if she were floating. "This is going to be over in about twenty seconds," she told him breathlessly.

"Okay," he breathed. He closed his eyes, not sure what she was trying to tell him, and not sure what else to do.

"No, no. Come here," she said, extending one hand, grabbing his knee, which was the only part of him within reach.

He moved a bit closer.

She removed both hands from their task, which took a Herculean will-power to do. She couldn't help but squirm a bit. Leaving the pink tool wedged inside her, he reached out and placed two fingers on her clit, and tried his best to mimic the motion she had been performing upon herself. She, in turn, reached out and wrapped her hand around his twitching cock.

With her lying on the bed and him seated beside her, almost without having to move, definitely without having to calculate or receive any kind of indicators from each other, they were both coming within ten seconds. Martha's whole body flooded her with pleasure once again, all abuzz with sensitivity and excitement. Vaguely she had the notion that _his _fingers were bringing her off, and what a coup that was! Outwardly, she shouted another expletive as her inner muscles gripped hard at the pink tool within her, and then pulsated around it. He observed this phenomenon, and it spurred him forward until Martha felt almost a _pop_, then heard him groan. She watched as white fluid spurted over her hand, and then she studied his face in the throes of pleasure. She promised herself to commit those twisted features to memory.

The Doctor shifted positions, then flopped back on the bed, facing up at the ceiling, catching his breath. Martha reached into the drawer for a tissue, but basically stayed where she was, and did the same as the Doctor.

After a long enough time that they were both breathing normally and his presence in her bedroom had now gone on too long after finishing their encounter for it not to be awkward, she said, "Well, what now?"

"Now, we see what's up with the energy transfer," he muttered.

"I see. Did we ruin the readings there at the end?"

"I shouldn't think so." He sat up, then stood, and tried his best to gather himself and zip up, all in one cool stroke. "Though I don't quite know what I'm looking for, so, you know..."

"Can I help?"

"If you'd like, but I'm not going to do anything until the morning."

"Okay."

He switched off the monitor which he had left on the forgotten armchair. "Mind if I leave the equipment here until then? I promise it won't read anything else off you, nor will it give you cancer."

"It's fine. Good night."

"Night."


	6. Chapter 6

VI

Exhausted, and a little afraid of facing the day (and the Doctor), Martha Jones rolled out of bed with a groan, roughly five hours later. She took her time getting dressed, putting on a spot of makeup, brushing her teeth, and finding something to eat. Mechanically she made her way to the console room...

"What are you doing?" she asked sheepishly, coming up behind him.

He was a bit startled, and turned to face her. "Oh. Erm, I'm... looking at the readings I took from you."

"Oh." It was pretty much as she had thought.

"It's interesting," he said. "Look at this. It's kind of like looking into the cube."

He picked the Aura Block up off the console and handed it to her. She compared it to what was on the screen.

The computer's image was pixelated, but it had the same multi-coloured, oscillating quality as the smoke-like substance (if it was a substance) inside the cube.

"Did you build the device that took the readings?" she wondered.

"Yeah."

"How?"

"I used some energy-input technology from the TARDIS," he said. "I did some cutting-and-pasting."

"Well, it looks like an aura. It's no wonder the Oracle thought you'd be able to read the cube."

"Maybe I just didn't try hard enough," he said. "But the TARDIS isn't having much luck either. Something isn't translating well."

For a few moments, there was silence as they both contemplated.

"Are we assuming that each colour represents something?" she asked, after a time, squinting at the screen.

"Yes, but I'm still at a loss," he said, scratching the back of his head. "I wasn't able to glean anything useful from the cube until the lights went out. And I can't read your aura any better than I can my own."

"Okay... but these are the readings you took last night from me," she said. "So are we, like, watching a video of my aura and energy? Is this linear, time-wise?"

"More or less."

"Well, then maybe something will change toward the end," she suggested, rather quietly. "And you'll be able to tell more from that. Maybe the colour, the oscillation pattern or something. If your energy stops being used by me, because... you were _there_... I don't know if that even makes any sense or not."

He looked at her squarely, with his mouth forming an O. It makes perfect sense. Why didn't I think of that?" he asked.

She shrugged.

"Did your mind shift?" he asked. "Was there an identifiable change? Like, one moment you were channeling images and information from inside of yourself, and the next moment, you were..."

"Letting you drive? Yeah. How focused (and daft) would I have to be to continue drawing my inspiration from within myself, if you're right there with your hands on me? Hand." She blushed.

"Right, okay, that makes perfect sense," he repeated.

"How long have you been staring at this thing?"

"Twenty minutes or so," he said.

"Well, it can't be much longer."

They watched the screen together for a few minutes.

"There!" Martha said suddenly.

"What?"

"That purplish-red bit, down in the corner," she said.

"Oh yeah," the Doctor said, almost wistfully. "Look at that."

They watched as the purplish-red bit that had been snaking through Martha's electronic aura suddenly gathered itself into a corner, and grew smaller and smaller, then suddenly disappeared completely. The entire "mood" of the screen grew warmer, then, and after a few more minutes, the colours returned to normal again. Then, after a few seconds, the readings stopped, and the screen went blue.

"Well, do you think it's safe to say that the purplish-red, the _magenta_ bit, is part of you?"

"I think it's a solid hypothesis," he conceded. "But I really don't have much way of knowing. I could try and program the TARDIS but that could take months. Meanwhile, I'm still without my time-perceptive abilities and who knows... oh, I've just got a brilliant idea."

He moved to his right, a quarter of the way round the console, and typed in some numbers. From somewhere like an overhead speaker, there resonated an intermittent buzzing, until...

"Who is that?" a female voice said, echoing in the console room. "This is the Oracles' Abode! You need to go through the Dispatchers first, you can't just..."

"Hi there, this is the Doctor," the Doctor said brightly, ploughing through any scolding he might otherwise have received.

"How did you even get the contact coordinates for this comm line?"

"Listen," he said, ignoring her question. "I was there a little over a week ago, and the Oracle with whom I spoke was tremendously helpful, though I'm not quite to the point where the problem is solved. I'm wondering if I could talk to her again. Just for a mo'. You know, a quick consult."

"If you have already been here, then you know the rules, Doctor. You'll need to provide proof that you tried to solve the problem on your own, plus..."

"Oh, I can do that," he assured her. "But since it's still the original problem, I was thinking that you'd extend me a courtesy, rather than having to open up a new case file for me. I mean, isn't it really just a lot of red-tape when it comes down to it?"

"Red-tape? Doctor, you're talking nonsense."

"Look, all I'm saying is, it's still the same case. Do you really want to start a whole new process, which will cost resources to the Oracles' Treasury Council, and prolong my complaint for another several days? After which, of course, I will have grown impatient, and will not hesitate to make a proper complaint."

There was a deep sigh from the other end. "Fine. Let me find out which Oracle you spoke to."

"Thank you."

"I would like it known that I'm basically just doing this to get rid of you."

"Understood."

With that, the line fell to a bit of white noise. But, within a minute, a familiar voice came over the comm.

"Doctor," the Oracle said. "What a pleasant surprise."

"Thank you for speaking to me," he said sheepishly. "I'm afraid I was not very nice to the person to whom I just spoke."

"Oh, that was not a person, but no matter," the Oracle lilted. She began to laugh. "You are indeed a naughty thing, aren't you? Somehow you got the contact coordinates, and completely bypassed the Dispatchers, then manipulated the Oracle Gate into putting you through to me! Cheeky!"

She continued to laugh, which made both the Doctor and Martha smile.

"Anyway," she said, her laughter dying down. "How goes your little problem? Have you got Martha to confess yet?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Yes, in a manner of speaking," he told her. "But as I assured you, there was nothing to confess."

"Have you changed your mind about bringing her in for observation?"

"No," the Doctor said, blushing, clearing his throat unnecessarily. "I did that myself."

"And?"

"And I took some readings, but I'm not sure how to interpret them," he said. "Martha and I looked at the data, but it was just a bunch of jumbled colours, like in the Aura Block. We think we _may_ have located which piece of the pixel-mosaic is the part of her aura that represents the energy she houses from me, but from there, we have no idea how to proceed."

"You both investigated this?" the Oracle asked. "Together?"

"Yes," the Doctor said. "Martha's right here. Say hello."

"Hi," Martha said. "I'm... I'm not evil."

The Doctor found this quite cute and smirked a bit before returning to conversation.

"I rang you because I was in hopes that you could somehow look at the data to you and analyse it, and tell us more," he said. "If you're not too busy."

"Just put it on a psychic conduit from your TARDIS, and I should be able to pick it up," the Oracle sighed, as though the Doctor were being remarkably dense.

"Put it on a... pardon me?" he asked.

"Isn't your vessel sentient? Doesn't she send out psychic feelers across the Vortex and whatnot, to detect things?"

"Yeah."

"Well?"

"Er, okay," the Doctor said, uneasily, frowning at the console. "I'll just feed this data into..." He adjusted some dials and toggles.

"Got it," the Oracle said.

"Seriously?"

"Of course, love," she replied, silkily.

"From our point of view... well, we think there's a purplish red area that represents the energy of mine that Martha harbours within herself," the Doctor said.

"Mmm," the Oracle lilted, beatifically. "Give me one moment to shift my view. I can perhaps see things in colours as you do, if I concentrate... oh yes, I see. You're quite right."

"Well, Madame Oracle, erm," Martha said. "If you don't mind my asking, what the hell is it?"

"The good news, Martha, is that it's actually rather superficial, this particular part of the Doctor's energy that you have identified, and from what I can see, it is the part that is being expended through you. But it's not the only thing of his that you carry with you. There are deeper 'colours,' as it were, colours that pervade your aura more profoundly."

"Well, what..." Martha began.

"Shh," scolded the Oracle. "One moment please."

Chastised, Martha literally put her hands at her sides and took a step back, even knowing that the Oracle could not see her.

"This energy can be replenished - it just needs time to heal and grow. But Martha, the reserves are diminished to the point that... well, once or twice more, whatever you're doing with that energy, and your consciousness will start dipping deeper into other 'colours,' as you put it, colours that cannot be replaced. You'll need to stop, my dear. Give the purplish-red, as you call it, time to heal."

"And then my time-perceptive aspect will return?" the Doctor confirmed.

"It should," the Oracle replied. "Interestingly enough, Doctor, the energy that Martha is expending has nothing to do with time."

"Well, that's not too much of a surprise," Martha muttered.

"The diminishment of your Time Lord repertoire is a mere by-product of having your energies scattered. Having them housed in Martha is one thing, but having her use, and then release them..."

"Okay," Martha said loudly. "I'll be waiting in the media room. I don't know if I can take this now." The word _release_ had felt to her like a pinprick on her conscience.

"Martha is what we sould call a _remote radiator_," the Oracle continued. "It's an interesting phenomenon, to be sure."

* * *

At the end of their conversation, the Doctor thanked the Oracle, and asked if he might make one more use of her aura-reading abilities, after he had devised a way to dampen Martha's use of his energies. The Oracle readily agreed, as she was fascinated by their case. She said she would leave instructions that she was to be contacted on the comms if he should try to get in touch, and that he was not to be harassed this time.

And then he went to find a sulky Martha, in the media room.

When he entered, she turned off the television and put her feet defensively up on the coffee table, and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Now what? You invent a dampener to quiet my destructive urges?" she muttered.

He smiled, in spite of himself. "Sort of. Though I don't think _invent_ is quite the right word."

"Will you give me an elixir to knock me out before the mood strikes? Or maybe a potion that will remove all the offending thoughts of you? Or, one that will turn my attentions to someone else. If you do that, could make it Clive Owen? Or maybe, a digital chastity belt of some sort? How about aversion therapy? I mean, like, give me a shock whenever I start..."

He pretended to contemplate these things, and conceded, "All very intriguing ideas. I wish I'd thought of them myself."

"So what, then?"

"I do have a solution in mind," he said. "One that will not stifle you, or your _urges_ in any way."

"What do I have to do?"

"Just slip another note in my breast pocket someday soon, and we'll try taking measurements again," he said, calmly. "But I'll have added something to prevent you from pulling from the energies within you. And the next day, we'll ask the Oracle to read the data, and tell us the status of the purplish-red."

"And the Oracle will tell us whether it's working? Are you sure that's the only way?"

"It's all I've got, just now. As long as she's on our side, we might as well take her up on her willingness to help! Do you have a problem with that?"

"No. Well, yes. I think she knows what I've been doing."

"I don't think she does. But even if she does, so what?"

"What if it doesn't work?"

"Then, it's back to the drawing board," he told her reassuringly. "We put our heads together and come up with a solution. It's what we do best."

"It's what _you_ do. I just hand you the scalpel and do your typing."

"Not true, but I'm sensing you're in no mood to argue," he decided. "Anyway, like I said, this plan is all I've got. Will you slip me a note again soon?"

She sighed. "Sure, why not? I'll let you know when the fire starts to gather." She said this with dramatic sarcasm.

"Good. Have you had more Scotch?"

"Yeah."

"Haven't you just woken up?"

"Isn't the time-of-day a bit meaningless in the TARDIS?

"Touché."


	7. Chapter 7

**Okay, I realize that this has taken forever, and I'm sorry! But I'm having some "real" problems with the next phase of this story! I wrote some quality smut, then couldn't decide whether it fit or not. But then again, I can't see myself completely tossing it out the window either. There is a "story" element that needs to be addressed somehow, but also another smutty plot bunny that perhaps will need to be fed. I couldn't figure out how to do it without making the next chapter 8,000 words long, or writing 4 chapters in a row of wall-to-wall smut. That's a bit more overkill than I was going for in this story... **

**Gee, my life is hard. ;-)**

**Anyway, it might not hurt to refresh your memory as to where we left off. (Namely, the Doctor has worked out a way for Martha not to have suppress her sexual desires, and also not have to pull from her inner-stores of Doctorness in order to do it. Thus, restoring the Doctor to his full Time Lordy self, and probably making Martha reallllllly happy.)**

**But first, this chapter contains a pretty tantalizing lead-up. Rest assured I've got some good smut on the runway, almost ready to go, but it needs a tweak (eek!). I'm not messing with your mind and/or emotions on purpose. Trust me when I say, this short-ish chapter is the result of some logistical issues!**

* * *

VII

Sometimes, in the course of living her very strange life, she could predict when the compulsion would strike. Whenever they flew into a particularly intense brand of running, screaming, thinking-at-a-thousand-miles-per-hour battle, she had the sense somewhere in the back of her mind that she was about to get a heavy dose of Doctor-lust. Of course it depended on other circumstances, as well, but it was something she had more or less come to terms with. In fact, if she was honest with herself, she even rather liked it.

Other times, she could not predict it at all.

Such was the case, almost two weeks later, when she scrawled on a piece of paper, "Tonight," once again, folded it, then went to track down the Doctor. Nothing special was happening, she was just feeling that particular kind of restless that makes a person seek that particular kind of rest...

She found him in a workroom, trying to put some sort of gadget back together. His glasses were on, his hair was mussed, his tongue was stuck out of the corner of his mouth. If the compulsion hadn't already hit her for some reason today, this might have done it. It made her chuckle. By now it was no big surprise that the Doctor in "nerd" mode got her blood boiling a bit, but it was still sort of funny.

"What?" he asked, not looking up, as he twisted two wires together with his fingers.

"What, what?"

"Why are you laughing?"

"I dunno," she shrugged. "You just... look cute."

He grunted. "I don't feel cute."

"Oh, what do you know about it?" she lilted.

With that, she made her way round the work bench and reached across his torso, pushing the note into his breast pocket. He immediately stopped what he was doing, nearly dropped the gadget on the table, and looked at her, eyes wide, mouth in an "O" position. He did not, of course, have to read the note to know what it said.

"Okay?" she asked shyly.

"Oh-oh... erm, yeah, okay," he stammered, then cleared his throat. "Absolutely. Yes."

"Okay, then," she said, then sauntered toward the door with a flirty smile. "After dinner, just follow. Like before."

He gulped hard, and managed to croak, "All right."

"Lovely," she chirped, then she left the room.

* * *

Going for a run helped pass the time, and work off the anticipation that seemed to cling to her bones. She invited him to join her, but he claimed not to have any proper shoes for the occasion (even though he ran in those Converse all the time, when his life literally depended on it). _Just as well,_ she thought, as she plugged into her iPod and jogged to the sort of music she only ever listened to when she was stressed, and about to burst from the tension.

When she returned, she showered to the sort of music she only ever listened to when she was trying to relax.

And then, dinner. It was her turn to arrange it, so she just dug a frozen pizza out of the freezer and threw it in the oven. While it baked, she cut up a half-pineapple, peeled and pulled apart two clementines, sliced the last of the strawberries from the TARDIS' garden, and threw all the pieces into salad bowls. She found the exercise calming, almost meditative.

The meal itself was nothing fancy, but it was nevertheless a nerve-wracking event. The conversation was a bit stilted, a bit forced. There were artificial niceties, awkward, furtive glances and virtually no enjoyment of the food.

They cleared the table together, then put the dishes in the sink. It was the Doctor's turn to wash them. He asked, "Should I just let them sit until later?"

"Up to you," she said. "Me, I ran seven miles today - I'm going to bed."

* * *

Once again in her room, after activating the four sensors at the corners of the bed, listening to the water run in the adjacent bathroom as she brushed her teeth, he paced.

This time, he was more distracted than before, and it didn't occur to him to get unwound by taking off his jacket or tie. He was deeply uncomfortable in a way that had little to do with his clothing - why bother?

And he was nervous, and unsure of himself.

Because, he hadn't quite been able to shake off the words and manner that Martha had used a few minutes ago when she'd announced she was going to retire for the night. She had been very matter-of-fact, and he reckoned this meant that like before, she was making an effort to pretend nothing weird was amiss, and that once she came into the bedroom she would be trying her best to pretend that he was not there.

For some reason, he hadn't considered this, and/or how he would feel about it when the time came. It made the process so much dodgier - how could he not have seen it? He wondered in this moment if he should perhaps actually come up with a _device_, some type of _dampener_ to keep her from using his energies as she had been. Martha herself had thought of quite a few good (if sarcastic) suggestions as to what he could give her: a "potion" to remove the offending thoughts or turn her attentions to someone else, a digital chastity belt, aversion therapy... all of which were doable, none of which would be easy or pleasant. He sighed now, thinking he may have to go there...

Because the fact was, he hadn't been completely frank with her when he'd said that he had found a solution to their little problem. Which was, he now realised, _so _not fair to her. He had been thinking, at the time, only of himself. He had been too skittish, too prudish, in spite of what they had already shared, to actually come out and _tell her_ what he had in mind. He had figured he would work up the courage as the week went on. And if not, he had assumed she would just be surprised and delighted at the prospect when the moment arrived, and she realised what was happening.

But what if she wasn't? What if she felt lied-to or violated in some way? It was not out of the realm of reasonable.

"You're such an idiot," he growled to himself as he paced.

And so, as things stood now, he had no idea how to proceed. He actually thought that the only right thing to do was just to "break protocol" and talk to her as soon as she emerged from the bathroom.

But when she did, she was wearing the light pink Japanese robe, and his breath hitched in his throat. He hadn't been prepared for how powerful this visual would be, and she hadn't knocked on the door as a warning, to give him time to get to his armchair. And so he stood sideways, frozen in his tracks, watching her move, watching the silken fabric reflect light as it billowed and sailed over her formidable, perfect, curves. Already, just in these few seconds, he could feel his body tightening. The question of what the hell to do next had not completely left his mind, he just found that he couldn't devote any conscious thought to it...

She went to the little night stand and took her vitamin. Her back was to him, and he seized the opportunity to completely drink in the sight of how her bottom shaped the silk, and how it hung from her like a gentle and unobstructed waterfall.

She placed the glass back upon the wood, then turned her head to the side, almost as though to look over her shoulder.

"Are you just going to stand there, or are you coming over here?" she asked softly.


	8. Chapter 8

**So, when we left off, the Doctor was in Martha's bedroom knowing that he would join in the fun this time, and not just watch. :-)**

**This chapter has been a long, and surprisingly emotional endeavor! This chapter, as I mentioned in the previous chapter, was quite difficult to write because I had some plot points to deal with, and some "baggage" in my brain to shuck off. Not to mention, sometimes you just can't force yourself to sit down and write smut. If you're not in the mood, it just... well. You know. **

**It's been through at least one complete do-over/revision. Giant chunks got deleted. I've edited at least four million times, and after all that, I feel like it's still not quite right. It's a bit more overkill-y and complex than I had been hoping, but as I said, I did reject many other actions/phrases, etc. There's a lot about sleeves/cuffs (somewhat necessary to the "plot,") a night stand and touching the wall (mostly for my own entertainment), and knocking things over... you'll see. I wanted to hearken back to their previous experience together, and also look forward to how things must inevitably be.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. **

**FYI: I will post one final chapter after this, sort of an epilogue to their story.**

* * *

VIII

"Are you just going to stand there, or are you coming over here?" she asked softly, turning her head to look at him over her shoulder.

If she had shot him, he could not have been more stunned.

"Wha..." he began, though basically only breath came out. Then, he tried again. "What?"

She did not move. "I'm not an idiot, Doctor," she practically sang. "You have a _solution_ to the problem? One that won't hamper my _urges_ in any way? Being evasive about what sort of _device_ you'd be using - a _dampener_ of sorts? Having to _be here_ again when it happens, but not bringing any new equipment with you?"

He gulped, then whispered. "Yeah. Sorry."

"Don't be. What better way to get me to stop pulling from my own stores of your energy?"

"How long have you known?"

She turned her head to face forward at the wall again. In spite of it all, she still couldn't quite bring herself to face him just yet. "Since the day we talked to the Oracle. After I sobered up and started thinking straight, that is."

He felt very sheepish. He'd been so wrapped up in his own drama, he'd almost forgotten who he was dealing with.

"I should have known you'd work it out," he whispered. He was now, almost involuntarily, walking toward her.

She could hear his voice coming closer. She pulled loose the sash that was tied in a bow at her waist and shrugged off the silk robe. And now, she was wearing only her flawless, golden brown skin.

He moved forward and pressed himself against her, and bent his head and placed a few warm kisses across her neck and shoulders. He felt her shiver.

Almost by contrast, suddenly he felt hot, like the temperature in the room had risen ten degrees. He took a step back and began unbuttoning his suit jacket.

She turned only her head, like before, and saw what he was about to do. She reached out and grabbed his wrist. "Please leave that on."

He was surprised, and though he felt encumbered by the jacket, he could not say no to her now.

And when he returned his hands to where they had been, she looked down at them, then grasped at one of his forearms. The brown and blue pin-striped cuff was part of the package for her, part of the landscape of her fantasies.

He went back to work, kissing, nipping, sucking at her neck and shoulders. She keened against him, and sighed.

The sound brought about a powerful sense-memory of their last "encounter." Suddenly he was remembering having watched her pleasure herself, and he now had a sense of what might really push her forward. He was obliged to bend his knees a bit, but he placed his palms against her thighs. He stroked up and down, squeezed her flesh, then ventured to her inner thighs, and caressed. Again she sighed and leaned in to him. He knew she must be able to feel a distinct hardness against her lower back.

He continued to echo her actions from that encounter and extended his thumb as he pulled his hands back upwards. It breached the folds where her thighs met, which he found warm, and beautifully slick.

"Mm, already?" he commented softly in her ear.

"I've felt like that all day," she told him, her breath cut short as the thumb slid over her clit.

He stroked her the same way, one more time, except harder. Her head spun. She groaned and lost her balance just a bit, and she fell forward, bending at the waist. She caught herself on the wall behind the night stand. She let go of his forearm, now placing both hands on the wall, just to cope with the sensation, to catch her breath.

The Doctor, having wondered about it for two weeks, reached down and used the few inches of space between her and the night stand to open the top drawer. In addition to the pink tool with the teardrop head he had seen her use, there were two other interesting-looking implements of pleasure (as well as a few more mundane things, like a book, chewing gum and some pens).

He chose an instrument that was a bright, royal shade of purple and had a dull hook on the end.

He encouraged her to stand up straight again, then slid the hook end down her abdomen and into the moisture below. As it grazed her clit, she moaned, and pressed back against him for leverage. His cock twitched and his whole body tightened.

He slid the free hand up to her breast and used three fingers to tug at the nipple, and pushed the purple instrument up and inside of her. He lazily moved it in and out, and she sighed.

"Good?" he asked, barely able to form a word.

"Yes," she sighed. "But I'd rather have _you_."

"You will, don't worry," he said, calmly.

With that, he pushed back on the instrument, causing the hook to lurch forward inside her. With the sensation, she let out a scream of surprise and sudden, violent pleasure that gave him fuel to do it again. When he did, her knees seemed to go weak, and she collapsed just for a moment. He caught her around the waist, and returned her to a standing position. He made the hook press forward one more time, then pressed the little button at the base of the tool, and it began to vibrate.

Again her legs seemed to turn to jelly, and her body moved erratically - he struggled to keep the pressure on. She was out of control with ecstasy and lust now, unable to see straight or to stay fully standing, whether he held onto her or not. She gasped and cried out, she swore, begged him not to stop...

And then, everything within her seemed to break loose. He felt her insides tug hard at the instrument, he heard her shout, then fall heavily, intensely silent. Her arms flew behind her, her fingernails dug into his thighs, and he knew she was coming hard, like seas breaking on rocks. But she couldn't hold on for long, and her legs couldn't help but spread apart. With that, her knee lurched forward and came to rest on the night stand, knocking over a half-glass of water, a bottle of vitamins and a lamp. He kept his hands on her as best he could, trying to see her through, help her finish, and come down from a sanity-stealing orgasm.

As it subsided, she found herself more or less perched atop the night stand, trembling. His arms and hands were still engaged with her...

And indeed, in those two or three seconds while they both caught their breath, her eyes fixated on his hands, and what she could see of his arms. One hand was filled with her breast, and the other was still grasping a purple vibrating tool, still lodged inside of her. His thumb switched it off, easing her down from that screaming high. These were powerful, ancient, knowing hands which she had watched manipulate the TARDIS console a hundred times, wield time and make it take them to parts of the universe unknown. Now they were manipulating her body, making it sing and shout and hum.

She moved back to a standing position, and he let the purple tool slip from inside of her, and laid it on the night stand. She set the lamp and the vitamins upright.

Suddenly, one hand then grasped her hip, squeezing as though he was afraid she'd slip away. She felt the other hand reach for his zip and heard the mechanism practically ripped open, and within a few seconds, she felt his hard, and very hot flesh against her bum. As much as she would have loved bending forward anew and being properly _taken_, she stopped him by grabbing his cuff once again.

"Wait," she panted. "Whatever we do, it has to be between the sensors. Right? Otherwise we won't know if it actually works."

The Doctor gave an involuntary, low growl of frustration. He had very nearly forgotten that they were here to solve a problem.

Grudgingly, he grumbled, "Yeah, you're right. Let's see if this works."

He moved slightly to the right, picking up one of the sensors at the corner of the bed, and moving it so that it was on their left.

He said, rather breathlessly, "Now, theoretically, as the four sensors create a field of energy, though one side would be skewed, we would be within it."

"Okay," she whispered, her head turned as it often had been since she had emerged from the loo. She could barely see him in her peripheral vision, but she nodded as if she could.

"We're going to try an experiment," he told her, repositioning himself with his left hand on her hip.

"Other than the one we're already trying?"

He dipped his head down and whispered in her ear, "I want to see what happens when you can't actually see me." The whisper was more like a hiss.

"I can already tell you the answer to that," she reported, shakily.

"Well," he said, gently, allowing his free hand to wander up her body, and now nipping at her ear. "We failed to capture it on the first go, so we'll have to try again. Sorry, love."

"Yeah, I'm sure I'm going to hate it," she groaned as he pinched her nipple. She laid her head back against him and felt that she was about five seconds from melting into the floor.

"Lean forward," he said gently.

"Yes," she seemed to whisper absently, as she crooked her body forward again and placed her hands on the wall. Almost instinctively, she spread her feet apart a little bit as she did so. He bent his knees deeply, then found a semi-comfortable, movable footing, to accommodate the difference in their heights...

And she waited.

Next thing she knew, both of his hands were on her hips, and she could feel him sliding into her. He lodged himself completely inside her heat with a deep, gorgeous groan.

That sound alone, she felt she could just take it to her grave with her.

She nearly swooned as the sensation of him overwhelmed her. Her senses seemed to short circuit, except those needed to feel him entering, then pulling back, only to push inside again. She could neither hear, nor see, nor think as he began to move in and out, and find a rhythm.

And just as the world came back into focus, he grabbed her round her rib cage with his left arm and pulled her upright. He never missed a beat thrusting in and out - not fast, but deeply - even though he had to change angles. His subtle, whispered grunts in her ear were like a melody to her. It was as much a part of the whole package as was his pinstriped sleeves around her and the feel of his body against hers. She could not imagine that this was a more comfortable arrangement for him, however...

...but then her thinking turned to mush as his right hand crawled down between her legs. His fingers slid over her clit as before. She whispered a curse, and grabbed onto his left forearm and dug into it with her fingernails again. He increased his force driving into her, and began to move the fingers of his right hand in a circular motion, just the way he knew she wanted it. She gasped loudly, and again nearly collapsed, only to be caught.

"I can't stay on my feet," she panted. "Not again!"

"You couldn't stay on your feet last time either," he panted back. "But you have to come for me, so I can see what happens. And do it soon!"

"Are you kidding me? You know _exactly _what happens!" she practically cried out, as the pleasure rose within her.

"For the sensors," he encouraged. "Do it for the sensors."

If he said anything else, she did not hear. Everything went bright and dark all at once, and the second climax seemed to crash through her even harder than the first. She let out a ragged cry and tried to keep her legs straight, but to no avail. She had his sleeves for leverage, and he held her upright, lifting her nearly off her feet, trying to help her come down from the second incredible high.

Once she calmed, the Doctor stepped back a bit, enough to disengage. She instinctively turned around to face him. Breathlessly, she looked him over, and he seemed to her a bit overdressed for the occasion. She gave him a smile and chuckle, and stuck right into unbuttoning his pinstriped jacket.

"Oh, _now_ you want it off," he said.

"Just tell me to stop, and I will," she said, pushing the coat down his arms.

"God, no," he breathed, loosening his tie. Martha set about helping with the shirt buttons.

In record time, the two of them had peeled off his remaining clothing. "So now what?" she asked. "Find out what happens when I _can _actually see you?"

He answered, "Mm," in assent and took a step forward, catching her cheeks in his hands and planting a solid kiss on her lips. He pressed his tongue between them, and she let hers press back, and dance along.

The kiss inflamed her all anew. She sighed heavily, almost a moan, and she reached down and found a very hard member jutting out between them, practically buzzing with frustration and anticipation. She gave it a stroke, and he pulled away from the kiss and groaned with something between a laugh and a whimper, which made her smile.

"Come on, then," she said, softly, sliding her hand into his. She took a couple of steps backward toward the bed, and simply fell back upon it.

As though they were one, very lithe being, he came down atop her and pressed her into the mattress with his whole body. Once again, he pushed his tongue into her mouth, and she welcomed it completely. He felt her legs part and he shifted between them and couldn't help but shove inside, driving right to her core. In response, they both gave a groan, and pulled away from the hungry kiss, to look at each other with utter shock in their eyes.

He had given her pleasure that had nearly turned her legs to jelly and clouded her senses. Twice. She had felt the throb, and could now see the desperate fire in his eyes. So, she was not surprised that when he began to thrust again, that he wasn't particularly gentle. He didn't have the energy nor the self-control anymore, and she relished in it.

Plus, he had watched her, and seen what she liked. This was it; this would be hard, fast and short.

In spite of the sparking at every inch of their bodies, he managed to look down at her. It was a look she recognised, and adored. It was passion and exhilaration, concentration and excitement. It was exactly what she loved about him - that all-consuming burn, that, until tonight, she had only seen him express at the vortex and the cosmos.

It seemed this whole saga was full of truths, and in this moment, another truth came to light: bowed forward, and facing the wall, having mind-bending pleasure at his hands was one thing. Looking him in the eye while he fucked her, watching him approach the brink himself, and exert effort in trying to push her over the edge as well... this was a whole experience unto itself.

And it was just that: experience. Not fantasy. No filling-in of blanks. No tapping into reserves she already possessed. He had her, and she had him. Eyes open, no pretentions.

Quite suddenly, a practical growl came from somewhere in the Doctor's throat, and at the same time, something inside Martha popped. She gave a cry as they came together. They clutched one another, and each felt the other throb and push and flow, and each heard the other groan. The explosion seemed to last an eternity, and when it was over, it had them breathless.

There were another few moments of shock while they recovered and looked at each other with wide eyes.

After the exhaustive exhale, and the turn-away-to-recover, Martha was the first to speak. "Are you going to turn off the sensors?"

"Let them run," he answered.

_Fair enough,_ she thought. _We both know what they will say. _


	9. Chapter 9

**A short but sweet end to this story!**

**Although, I have to admit, one of the reasons why the previous chapter took so long was that I had other ideas that would have taken up more and more chapters... ideas that could have become another story. So this saga may not actually be over. Just this episode of it, for now!**

**Thanks for reading! Please leave a final review. :-)**

* * *

IX: EPILOGUE

For the first time ever, these two occupants of the TARDIS awoke together, dressed together, and headed to the console room together. Though, not before the Doctor tinkered with the sensors around the bed (one of them now amusingly askew), and sent the data to the TARDIS' data banks.

Before ringing the Oracles' Abode, they decided to watch the sequence of pixilated "aura" images on the screen. What they had both more or less known, proved true: the purplish-red bit that represented the Doctor's energy, harboured within Martha, remained constant. It snaked through her aura, interacting with other colours, but it not unnaturally gather nor dissipate in any way. In fact, it may have grown stronger. And Martha even felt she could see the "deeper colours" that the Oracle had discussed, the ones that represented a much more pervasive and irreplaceable presence of the Doctor within her being.

In her mind, it begged a question: if they repeated this "experiment" over a longer period (and based on this morning's easy interactions, the smiles, the teases, the bouts of brief snogging, the holding of hands, she felt very hopeful that the experiment would continue), could those colours eventually take her over? Would his energy grow stronger within her, and just continue to expand and expand? And if so, what were the consequences? And was something similar happening to the Doctor, and the colours of Martha's humanness?

She made a mental note to, someday soon, ask these questions. For now, though, she felt satisfied that what they saw on the screen reinforced the fact that parts of their energies had been exchanged, that she did indeed harbour something that had come from the Doctor himself. That was beautiful to her, and it made her feel, if only temporarily, content. She also took comfort in the fact that the purplish-red in her aura remained "unused," as it were, even when, as the Doctor had specifically wondered, she couldn't actually see him. She needed nothing but _him_ to feel sated and quenched - no more drawing from within.

Which was excellent for her - one might even say _vindicating_ \- after all these months of pining, fantasising, and waiting.

The benefits to the Doctor, she hoped, could be considered twofold: not only would he get his time-perceptive abilities back (soon, if not today), but she fancied that he might actually find their new relationship as satisfying as she. She vowed to be vigilant, and keep it so.

After discussing their findings, and celebrating them in their own developing, cutely amourous way, they rang the Oracles' Abode. It felt almost like a victory lap, but also as a way to confirm what they, admittedly, merely _suspected _or _surmised._

Martha remembered that the Oracle had put in strict orders to patch the Doctor straight through to her with no fuss nor circumstance. She had been sufficiently fascinated by their dilemma to allow them to flout the proper channels.

"Is that the Doctor?" asked a clearly annoyed voice.

"Indeed, it is," he answered with that whimsical tinge to his voice. "How are things?"

The voice sighed. "Whatever. Please hold for your Oracle."

After only a few seconds, the familiar Oracle's voice came through. "Doctor! Martha! Lovely to hear from you!"

"Hello," Martha said sprightly.

"Hello yourself," said the Oracle. "Well, Martha, you sound much more chipper than the last time we spoke."

"Yeah, well, we may have good news," the Doctor said.

"Do you have data to send me?"

"We do," he answered. "Let me just..." he began, as he sent the sensors' findings into the ship's psychic channels.

"I have it," the Oracle said almost immediately.

"What do you think?" asked the Doctor. "Will I be back up and running as an actual Time Lord anytime soon?"

"Based on this, love, I would definitely say so," the Oracle reported, with a laugh. "Congratulations! You solved the problem without selling out your friend."

"Selling out my..." he sputtered. "What? You're the one who tried to talk me into it! Interrogations and probative observations and whatnot..."

"Well, clearly, I was wrong," she admitted. "I did not comprehend the full nature of things. Of your friend Martha, and for some reason, I missed certain... _aspects_ of your 'friendship'. At least until today."

The two in the console room looked at each other shyly and smiled, both blushing fiercely knowing that the Oracle could see their goings-on in the mess of cloudy data they'd sent.

"But I must remind you both," the Oracle said, her tone changing to a slightly more serious one. "That the damage, if that's what we're going to call it, that occurred in unnatural genetic manipulation is permanent."

"What _unnatural genetic manipulation _would that be?" Martha asked, looking up at the Doctor.

"The Lazarus machine."

"Ah," she said, nodding.

"And as long as Martha is living, she will carry a piece of you, Doctor," the Oracle continued. "As long as she harbours... _feelings_ for you, you will face this problem."

"Understood," the Doctor answered.

"So I must ask: is this a _sustainable_ solution, you have found?"

He looked at Martha and found her looking back, with a small tint of worry in her eyes.

He smiled reassuringly, and sighed, "Oh, yes."


End file.
